So, here’s a thing. How does the call for peace square with the way peace is often achieved? I’ve always been fascinated by those who call for peace at any cost. Pacifism seems like a luxury of our day to me, though increasingly less so.

As an American, I’ve been raised with the belief that something are simply worth fighting–and, by extension–dying for. Chief among those things? Freedom. What happens when you value peace over freedom? Your only choice then is to give in to rule, and probably unrighteous rule at that. But is that so bad? It might not be, so long as you’re comfortable. I wonder what happens when you’re not.

On the other side of that, no one has yet figured out a way to stop freedom of thought. There’s a zen that can overtake you when you just accept your circumstances and let the outside forces do what they have to do. So long as you’re okay with yourself and you’re behavior, there’s a school of thought that says you can endure anything.

Or do pacifists honestly think good ends come about by weak means? I confess I have my doubts.

See you on Monday with the final, double-sized installment of this chapter!

Wow, you know the world is ending when Tangerine, the former violent member of the super team finds God and goes speak about peace. Still, kind of surprised and understanding this is coming from the former violent member of a super team.

He did not find God. What God teaches us (humanity) to do is to turn the other cheek (refuse to commit any act of hate or malice in response to being attacked), and to “love your neighbor as yourself” as well. Namely, do anything and everything to help your neighbor that you would do to improve your own life- all the time.

Tangerine not only does not help his neighbor, he actively ignores them- first, refusing to use his strength to protect people who were being hurt and killed by enemies who were beyond diplomacy when he had the ability to fight them the entire time. Second, by endorsing giving up freedom so that “one does not have to fight”… is NOT the way to happiness. In Superfogeys, this is very blatant. He is trying to advocate making a treaty with a woman he
knows to be an unrepentant murderer and torturer.

Maybe this is because he was very similar to her in the not too distant past and he’s scared to admit that she is evil and cannot be reasoned with because he feels deep down that that would mean he is too, or maybe because

“*I’m* tired of being Spy Gal’s dog”, “Happiest *I* ever been wuz when *I* gave up the fight”… maybe he is completely selfish, and has only lied to himself until he believes that he’s looking after anyone but him.

Look at what Owen Hutchins said about Hitler and Gandhi below. He’s right. There’s a big difference between choosing not to commit violence, and choosing to let wrongdoing happen.

While I basically agree with you, I also think it’s fair to point out that it kind of depends what sort of God you’re talking about. Tangerine has done a lot of studying and I’ve purposely not said what sort of religion he actually subscribes to.

I also think there’s something to knowing what you, as an individual, can and cannot do. For Tangerine committing violence is like uncorking a bomb. Obviously, since the year later jump he’s doubled back on his commitment to non-violence, but what this strip demonstrates is that he’s a very conflicted individual. I think for him, right and wrong are very fluid things and guilt is weighing him down into the mire of confusion.

Still, in his conversation with Cap, he does represent one side of the argument.

Pacifism requires an honorable and civilized opponent Had Ghandi been protesting in 1930s Germany, he’d have been a footnote in history. And that segment of history demonstrates that sitting by passively does not let you endure everything.

Absolutely, man. Look at how many people are still hailed as heroes around the world today who committed no violence, true, but helped American slave escape along the Underground Railroad, and helped the Nazis victims escape Germany. No violence, but also no passively sitting by. Thousands of people would have died if not for their *action*. Their *fighting*.

But how does thinking extent to the actual battlefield? To those in power who are burdened with protecting the populace and defending their existence and freedom against the enemies who would align against them?

This is where I have a hard time with hardline pacificism. The kind of pacifists who, for example, refuse military service, have the luxury to be pacifists in the first place because they live in a defended, free country.

Not necessarily true. And if you think that there were no “Ghandis” in Nazi Germany, resisters who got out and worked to turn the tide of public opinion against Hitler, you’re not paying attention.

Yes, an aggressor must sometimes be met with force. But that doesn’t mean you elevate force as a good unto itself.

As an American, sometimes I hear people hail the military as where we get our freedoms from. They are the ones who “protect” our freedom. They are who we “owe” our freedom to. That’s baloney, pure and simple, and is much closer to the apotheosis of the military state you see in dictatorships than a true American republic. Our laws, our constitution and our cultural commitment to adhering to an ethos and rule of law is what protects our freedom. The military is a tool only and can and has been just as easily used to take freedom as it is to establish or protect it. Violence is not an answer to any question but an attack of violence. Wars do not have winners in the modern world, only losers.

When the heroes of this cartoon world at last defeat the evil invaders from space and the alternate dimension, it won’t be the end, only the beginning. The people on the “winning” side could very easily be setting themselves up for yet another dictatorship in their desire to worship their saviors and the war itself as the means to their salvation.

Also, Brock, I do resent the sneer at pacifism using “weak” means to achieve peace. There are, in fact, other means besides violence in response to international conflicts. Diplomacy or economic sanctions can and do work in many cases. War and violence should be looked on as the last resort, instead of the first tool we use in response to any rhetoric from an adversary.

Of course in this fantasy Surida and Thrice Evil are genuinely evil supervillains. They aren’t even human and won’t respond to anything BUT violence. So, yeah, here it’s preordained that violence is the only answer and anyone who doesn’t want to fight is made to look stupid and weak. Because in this story they are.

Already said my piece on the points raised by the story, but wanted to throw in my doubt that Brock (of all webcomickers) was calling pacifism using “weak” means to achieve peace. It read to me more like “is it true what people say- pacifism is weak?”
Mind you, that’s only somewhat from post context, and mostly from what Brock tells us in his blog and such, but that’s what I got from it.

Holaved is essentially correct–I was posing the question, not offering a statement of belief.

However, I think there are brands of pacifism and there are certain brands I can’t get behind.

I actually disagree that we don’t owe our freedoms to the military. We absolutely do. Maybe not wholly, but we owe fighting men and women our thanks for the establishment of our freedoms and their continuation. It would be all Man in the High Castle up in here if not for them.

I agree that the first step should always be diplomacy and other non-violent means. But where those means fail, I think you have a moral obligation to defend yourself and your freedoms, even unto death.

The military is nothing more than a tool to be used in defense of the civilian power and citizenry. As an institution in America it receives far far FAR too much cultural adulation, as though merely wearing a uniform elevated you to the status of a hero, when we know that is very much not the case, especially in war. US soldiers have been and will continue to be guilty of crimes in war that would get them imprisoned if they were done in any other circumstance. but we give them a free pass for the most part because they are perpetrated against people we currently deem to be the enemy, whether they are combatants, civilians, men, women or children.

I say this as someone with friends and family in the military currently, and from a long line of honorably serving men and women. But they were and are human beings just doing their job, not some demigod whose feet I should make a big show of kissing. They are and were never superheroes, and their role, as defined by both the mission statement of the United States (The Declaration of Independence) and the law of the land (Constitution) is to be answerable to and inferior to the civilian power. This is why the Commander in Chief is a civilian, and thank God for that.

I deeply respect those who take and honorably keep an oath to defend our nation in the armed services. I am sick to death of the way we elevate warriors above those who really defend our freedom where it counts: Statesmen, teachers, journalists, fire fighters, doctors and police.

As to what we owe those in uniform? As a group, we owe it to them NOT to use them in unjust causes, we owe it to them NOT to send them into harm’s way without the most serious consideration and never until every last other option has been tried.

It’s very easy to sit at a computer terminal and spout about how “Sometimes you have to fight -” But I am fairly certain that few or none of the commentators here would actually be the ones doing the fighting, the ones who come back broken from the wars we sent them into. What we owe them most of all is to honor their service in more than just words. IMO we owe them and their families every service, medical and financial once they return. In this nation that makes a big noise about “Supporting The Troops,” these young people are coming back and essentially tossed aside to wither and eventually die, many times by their own hand. Actually, daily.

We owe them all this and more. What do we not owe the military? Our freedom. Because that would then mean that they could take it away whenever they wanted to. And, of course, they could I suppose. But by then we would have long before already given it up. We would have ceased to be America or anything approaching it.

People like to debate extremes (Peace OR freedom), but I believe there are no extremes/black and whites with humans. Everything is a shade of gray. Freedom is more important than peace… until you get enough freedom that peace becomes more important, and so on in a balancing act that won’t end until humanity in its current form does.

I actually believe the opposite. I believe in black and white, but I think our finite view of things renders things gray. If we could see into hearts and minds and across the expanse of space and time, then I do believe we would see right and wrong. Full stop.

But I essentially agree with your point–there is a balance to be had. Total freedom is anarchy. Total restriction is enslavement. There is an in-between that is the sweet spot.

Pacifism is great, but when your opponent doesn’t give a shit, it’s very unwise. Tangerine has some good points, but bowing down to someone who kills and tortures at will is deeply unwise and will only lead to more death.

I think you are correct. There is a time to sit down, and there is a time to stand up. But it makes sense to me that Tangerine would asking these questions. See what you think of him in the next strip. I think the position he takes there will make sense to you.